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Dinner this evening

Bear with me, this may not be for the faint hearted. 

Was driving on the weekend and as we left the village of Singleton, which sits on the borders of two South Downs estates (Goodwood and West Dean) a cock pheasant was hobbling across the road ahead of me. It had been hit by a car but seemed not to accept the situation. I cannot abide suffering (a long night of fear in a bush then a violent end from a fox). So I stopped, caught it and a quick neck stretch and into the boot with you. 

It’s been hanging a few days, then this. No plucking, just lift skin and remove with a slice up the middle to expose the breast. Two slices and the breasts are on a plate and then a bit of degloving of the leg and thighs, chop to remove the feet and there you are. Four good cuts. All the rest was put in the woods for el fox. 

One onion and three garlic cloves finely chopped, softened in an equal mix of a tablespoon of butter and olive oil. Then add four celery stalks and leaves cut roughly in 2 inch chunks so they stay in shape. Soften then remove from the pan. Brown the pheasant meat in the same pan. Add back the vegetables and half a pint of stock - veg or chicken - and a good handful of thyme, sage, bay. Bring to a simmer. Add a cup of walnuts and generous amounts of salt and pepper. 160 oven for 40 mins then add a chopped apple and return to oven for 10’mins. Stir in a glug of double cream. 

If you want to be traditional about it, add calvados to the browned meat, flambé, and then return the veg to the pan and carry on with the recipe as above. 

Serve with mashed potato 
 

Two slices and the breasts are on a plate and then a bit of degloving of the leg and thighs, chop to remove the feet and there you are. Four good cuts. All the rest was put in the woods for el fox.

Proper Hannibal Letter vibes from this. Enjoyed a lot. 

the only meat on pheasant worth taking is the breast (can be dry), thighs (v good) and legs (stringy, he's a walker, but good flavour so if it's in a casserole all is well). Plucking the bird then drawing it etc is messy and leaves a house full of downy feathers and a smell of innards. 

I now always skin them (lift skin above breast, insert small knife, slit like gutting a fish then open like a pair of curtains. this exposes the breastbone and you just run a knife down either side and off they come. Then you need to run that knife down at 90 degrees to your curtain line, down from what is effectively the hip down to the ankle, strip that, then cut off the thigh at the hip - one small hip bone bent back, cut the ligament and out it pops, cut the muscle to the back of the hip at the top of the thigh, and then go down the other end of the leg and chop off at the knee, where the feathers stop and the scaled leg starts. 

In no more than six knife strokes you have four skinless, meat-heavy cuts, clean and no feathery skin or mess from the inside of the bird.  The digestive tract is untouched and not punctured. The crop is not spilling pheasant feed everywhere. The amount of meat left behind is negligible. 

The fox or a passing red kite or covid then gets a carcass with a few bits remaining where you didn't do a perfect job removing the breast from the bone and some insides they will enjoy but you wouldnt.

Cost next to nothing. An onion, two cloves of garlic, some stock, some walnuts, herbs, salt pepper and cream.  Some potatoes. Feeds four.  We should eat more roadkill/roadbruised.

And with no lead shot to worry about.  Perfect. 

(A little imprint of Pirelli treadmarks on the breasts could perhaps be styled out as a presentational twist).

I like a bit of roadkill pheasant myself but that sounds like a huge amount of walnuts, do they not dominate? Make the whole thing gritty or chewy and bitter? Chopped or whole? 

wal nut halves. there are probably 15 or 20 in there.  They cook softish but stay in shape. They don't impart a bitter taste, but they do create a texture which goes well with the pheasant in an otherwise quite loose mix and there are some strong flavours - braised celery for one - which they balance. Also there's apple and cream so it is quite mild and you need some flavour and texture accents in this dish. 

I am discerning as to what roadkill gets collected. Something flattened and half crow-grabbed is a no. Anything leaking is a no. Usually anything actually on the tarmac has had a fair seeing too so no. But something in the grass verge which has been hit flying or running and bounced off a flat surface of a vehicle is likely to be dead but not shredded. If you can get that promptly or, better, get to an injured one and help it over to the Elysian Fields with the assistance of a hand tool...

where I come from, injured or not, that's called poaching and the game keeper is allowed to take one shot at you, both barrels if you're on someone elses land when he catches you.

If you want to do a bit of legal analysis, and why not, then you need to be aware that under English law in the English countryside, a roadkill pheasant is the property of the landowner, which, in the case of road forming part of the Public Highways Network (ie not a private roadway) and its margins on the road side of a hedgerow, fence or wall, is the council.  As a matter of policy councils have no objection to the removal of roadkill or injured birds on or adjacent to the road on their own land by persons other than those who rwn the animal over.  That last bit is to avoid people driving around to run over pheasants or other animals and collect them. it is an offence to collect an animal that you yourself have run over. It is not an offence to collect an animal that somebody else has run over. This is known as the bounty avoidance principal! 

As far as I am aware, nobody at Chichester Council has a shotgun for the authorised use against roadkill collectors.  

Thank you for listening to my TED talk

you get the bounty of your own irresponsible road conduct and are motivated to drive like a loony killer if you can take what you kill. I think that's the point, Wango

yup, come the zombie apoc, most of my worry is going to be whether I have enough ammo to hold back the hoards of people trying to come by for gourmet wild food, never mind the zombs who would probs get stuck in a deep but quite annoying debate with Chambo and 3dix in that pub in Guildford and forego the further half hour down the A3.

Does sound good. The road from here to the motorway goes through a lot of remote woodland and I have driven on by a few times in the past when I've seen injured pheasants, or even when I've seen a car in front take them out. Having kept chickens I think my neck wringing technique is perfected, and the lack of plucking in your approach makes the whole thing much more tempting.  

What's the biggest piece of roadkill you'd feel confident in tackling Mutters?  If you see eg a deer (not a muntjac - a full sized antlerframe) would you fancy carving off the bits that haven't been pulverized?  

I would not take a full sized antler frame (heh). They have a massive adrenal gland and die stressed when hit and anything other than a clean kill outright (eg by a full  bore rifle) is liable to leave meat affected as with not quickly drawing or gralloching them (gut bacteria contamination) or carcass puncturered by a car part, raptor or corvid. 

...and what's the most, ahem, challenging type of dispatch you would undertake - would a hobbling wild boar be left well alone, or would Mutts reach for the shotgun, load up a couple of slugs, and put it out of its misery?  

Stood on its windpipe until it went soft. 

Was working on a feedlot in Aus. It had been got at. I had been dropped off a ute to scrub out water troughs. It was on its back with two broken legs, dehydrated and crow pecked.  I was a long way from where a rifle was and didnt have my pocket knife for throat cutting. There were 300,000 sheep on the lot so a small percentage do kark it. Normally theyd be shot. Strangulation was the only way to dispatch it. Took ages to give up.

Id deffo sort a boar but only with a gun 

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